How do EdTech Websites Work?

This week I was teaching my interns at Urban Moon about building an EdTech website, and the most common question was, how do edtech websites work? So, I thought of writing an article summarizing the working of EdTech websites that would be helpful for anyone trying to learn this skill.

The workings of an EdTech website

EdTech websites work by delivering pre-recorded or live lessons to the users, providing the ability to take online tests, access study material, and be graded for their tests. The video lessons are normally supported through a third-party platform like YouTube or Vimeo. It often has a payment gateway through which users can purchase a subscription to access the courses.

There are a lot of components that work in tandem to make the EdTech website work. Understanding each of their workings in detail will help you ensure the smooth functioning of your EdTech website.

Understand the working of your EdTech website in detail

The EdTech websites are built on various platforms, be it WordPress, Drupal, Bootstrap, or WebFlow. For the sake of simplicity, in this article, I will only talk about WordPress. In order for your WordPress website to incorporate the EdTech features, you need to install an LMS (Learning Management System) plugin. There are many free and paid LMS plugins available. For example, LearnPress, LearnDash, and TutorLMS. Again, the pros and cons of each of these plugins merit a separate article in itself. For the moment, I will explain the general functionality of LMS irrespective of which plugin you choose.

Let’s start with the obvious. LMSs have the option to create courses. Within each course, you can create sections, and within each section, you can create lessons, quizzes, and assignments.
Inside lessons, you can add text lessons or videos and images.
For videos, it is advisable to host the video on a third-party platform like YouTube or Vimeo and embed the video in your course. Don’t worry, even though I say the video is hosted on YouTube or Vimeo, it will play within your EdTech website itself. It’s not like every time your students need to watch the lessons, they need to open it on YouTube. That would be absurd!
Apart from the lessons, you can add quizzes and assignments within each section based on the topics covered in the lessons. For quizzes, you ask a question and you can decide the format of the answers. For example, you can either have a multiple-choice format, true or false, or statement-type answers.
Normally, the answers are pre-fed in the system while creating the courses so that when the students take the test, the system can evaluate the answers and grade the test. The passing grade is also pre-decided while creating the courses so that after the completion of the entire course, the website can decide whether the student passed the course or not, and award the certificate accordingly.
Before we get into certificates, let us talk about assignments. Most premium LMS plugins, like the Tutor LMS pro, have the option to add assignments within each section along with the quizzes. Assignments are questions that have long-form answers, or which involve some exercise, which requires the students to submit an external attachment. The attachment can be in form of docs, spreadsheets, or code files depending upon the nature of the exercise, which needs to be manually evaluated by the admin or the instructor, and grades are awarded manually.

Can your EdTech website award a course completion certificate?

Many premium LMSs have the option to add certificates that will be automatically awarded to the students upon successfully completing the courses and passing all the tests. You can either design the certificate within the LMS itself or you can upload your own certificate template which can be edited in the LMS. As mentioned earlier, the completion of the course is decided based on whether the student went through all the lessons and could pass all the tests.

How are students enrolled in EdTech websites?

You can install the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress website and integrate it with the LMS plugin. Once that is done, your students can purchase the courses directly from your website and pay the course fee through a payment gateway. Once the payment is made, the students automatically get access to the course(s) they have purchased.
Alternatively, you can add students from the back end manually, but this needs to be done one by one. There are also some third-party add-ons, for example, the Custom User Importer for the Tutor LMS, through which you can import a list of students through a CSV file.

How are the instructors added to EdTech Websites?

Similar to the students, instructors can enroll themselves by registering as the instructor from the front end. Once they register themselves, the admin normally needs to approve or accept them as the instructor from the back end. Alternatively, the admin can also add an instructor directly from the back end. Both the admins as well as the instructors have the ability to create courses and add lessons.

How are lessons added to the EdTech Websites?

As briefly covered earlier, the most common course structure in LMSs constitutes various sections and each section has lessons and quizzes/tests. As an instructor or course creator, you need to write the name, intro, and other information about the course, and then add the sections within the course. Within each section, you upload the course content under lessons. The lesson can be in the form of text, images/infographics, or videos. Videos are the most popular form of lessons and are the easiest to consume.
In order to add text form of content, the creator just needs to type it or paste it in the field provided. Along with text, there is also an option to attach media files, where you can attach pictures or Video from of content.
However, the advisable way to add video content is to load the videos on a third-party platform like YouTube or Vimeo and embed it on your website within the course. You can make the video unlisted or personal on the platform so that it is not publicly visible and can only be viewed within the courses on your EdTech website.

What is Learning Management System (LMS)?

The LMS is part of an EdTech website or app on which teachers create the courses and students take the courses. Within the LMS the admin or the instructors can monitor all aspects of learning like the progress of each student, their performance in tests, learning goals, and other things like the expiry of subscriptions and their renewals, etc. LMS can either be programmed within the website, or a third-party LMS plugin can be integrated into the website if you are using a CMS like WordPress.

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